The prophetic genius of BLEEDING EDGE

[Mark Kohut]

Well said. I especially like the yoking---to me--of near opposites--maybe--
in your
combination of smug and prophetic.

The start of a nuanced case against, I guess, but
if your second sentence/paragraph is about BLEEDING EDGE then I disagree
strongly, no surprise.

I leads me to reflect that my steady-enouogh posting about how BE grows in
my mind might be
my smugness, so I'm recalibrating.

BE might be behind the big three now in my personal best ranking.



On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 12:25 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I hate art that is propaganda. So I agree with your complaint against
> "usefulness."
>
> But I also hate smug, no heart, punditry-prophesy , especially by fiction
> writers in novels.
>
> Like pornography, you only know it if it gets wet.
>
> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 10:55 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This dramatic prophecy which is BLEEDING EDGE
>> has that survival theme beautifully embodied (as his other works have. He
>> knows how to end a work of art, all of them, some more than others.
>>
>> I do not believe in more, --whatever "strategies for survival" and
>> "usefulness" mean--for most Art.
>>
>> I especially believe TRP does not proscribe some course of action(s). His
>> ambiguities allow lots of human responses.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jul 4, 2018, at 11:43 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dramatic prophesies, however sharp, require strategies for survival, not
>> "I told you so's" afterwards, to be useful.  Be useful.
>>
>> And strategies also require personal commitment to action to be credible.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 10:25 AM gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, I remember revisiting this conversation sometime in March back when
>>> we
>>> discussing Ernie's soliloquy, and Thomas sent me a link to discussions
>>> past
>>> about this subject. This late capitalist world we inhabit, the
>>> digitization
>>> of our lives, which is a long arc TP has been chronicling, but to
>>> furiously
>>> raid a cliche, but an apt cliche (I Promise...) the bacchanalia of the
>>> digital world presented in Bleeding Edge is contrasted with brutal
>>> reality
>>> of life on the streets of NYC (Think of Nick Windust's pad) ... Once the
>>> checks stop clearing, or whomever calls in the tab, the party's over, and
>>> it's back to the streets or worse... In the cold hard light of dawn the
>>> fraud becomes clear, the nascent fraud that underpins reality, it
>>> hearkens
>>> back to Lang's Metropolis... at least the social stratification...
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 9:08 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > One aspect.
>>> >
>>> > All over the mid-world of intellectual chatter which I surf ( your
>>> mileage
>>> > may vary), highlighted by an oft-cited cover story Harper's piece on
>>> how
>>> > late capitalism money has driven all but the rich out of NY CITY,
>>> >
>>> > I remember the Plister who said, when we were reading it, Where are the
>>> > Preterites?
>>> >
>>> > I think our group consensus was that P showed they were going, gone,
>>> from
>>> > NYC. (Maxine working for $500 -- if I remember right--was sorta the
>>> last,
>>> > so to suggest. )
>>> >
>>> > Sent from my iPhone
>>> > --
>>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> >
>>
>>
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>